This little quote was posted on the communality blog and I thought it was rad so I decided to pass it along here. It's a recent quote from Bono, who I don't know a heckuva lot about on account of my not being very hip, but I do know he's a rock star and so it's great that he's talking about the economics of jubilee.
"Carnival is over. Commerce has been overheating markets and climates ... the sooty skies of the industrial revolution have changed scale and location, but now melt ice caps and make the seas boil in the time of technological revolution. Capitalism is on trial; globalization is, once again, in the dock. We used to say that all we wanted for the rest of the world was what we had for ourselves. Then we found out that if every living soul on the planet had a fridge and a house and an S.U.V., we would choke on our own exhaust.
Lent is upon us whether we asked for it or not. And with it, we hope, comes a chance at redemption. But redemption is not just a spiritual term, it’s an economic concept. At the turn of the millennium, the debt cancellation campaign, inspired by the Jewish concept of Jubilee, aimed to give the poorest countries a fresh start. Thirty-four million more children in Africa are now in school in large part because their governments used money freed up by debt relief. This redemption was not an end to economic slavery, but it was a more hopeful beginning for many. And to the many, not the lucky few, is surely where any soul-searching must lead us."
More nourishment for our continuing thoughts about simplicity, global responsibility and the like.
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I think you hit the nail on the head; redemption is so much more than a spiritual transaction. The problem is that rather by choice or ignorance we never take the idea of redemption beyond the spiritual level. And in a way by never carrying it beyond self we start to idolize our own spiritual welfare. If the love of self were more important then the love we should have for others than I do not understand why Jesus would have subjected himself to death on a cross. The fact is, the redemption of our spirits should echo off of everything in our lives. It should be seen in our actions, our families, our communities, our world. In other words, it should be obvious to whom we belong.
ReplyDeleteI guess that by doing what we do we are making it obvious to whom we really belong… SELF.